


help me hold onto you

by the_jennster



Series: i say i don't want that (but what if i do) [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Abusive Father, Abusive Parents, Blood and Injury, Bullying, Coming Out, Fainting, Gen, M/M, Misgendering, Original Character-centric, Original Queer Character of Color, Other, POV Original Character, Past Character Death, Semblance (RWBY), Spoilers, Volume 7 (RWBY), now for the Actual Content Tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27403099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_jennster/pseuds/the_jennster
Summary: The mainland is different from home, louder. There's more people and more kids his age, but that doesn't seem to change the number of friends he has. He's the weirdo, the oldest kid in his class, the dumb farm kid who can't even fight right.A glimpse into the life of Vidal Princex and what made them who they are today,
Relationships: Original Character(s) & Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s)/Original Non-Binary Character(s), Original Male Character(s)/Original Non-Binary Character(s), Oscar Pine & Original Character(s)
Series: i say i don't want that (but what if i do) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002288
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2
Collections: The Adventures of Team NAVE





	help me hold onto you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShadowSnowdapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSnowdapple/gifts), [GeraldTheFabulousGiraffe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeraldTheFabulousGiraffe/gifts).
  * Inspired by [when icarus was pulled under](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27393277) by [GeraldTheFabulousGiraffe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeraldTheFabulousGiraffe/pseuds/GeraldTheFabulousGiraffe). 
  * Inspired by [Soul of Love and Bravery](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24425746) by [ShadowSnowdapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSnowdapple/pseuds/ShadowSnowdapple). 



> Yes this is direct revenge on my lovely friend Gerald because they posted OC fic from our campaign and we like to hurt each other.  
> If you want more of my disaster child Vidal, you can also find them in the inspired works.
> 
>  **Note:** While a majority of this fic addresses Vidal with he/him pronouns, they are two-spirit and non-binary and use they/them pronouns. The usage of he/him is because those scenes are told from their childhood self, who did not have an understanding of non-binary gender identities at the time. Misgendering was tagged because of it, so don't read if that makes you uncomfortable!

"Victor!" he yells after his brother, stumbling on the steep hillside. "Caleb, Verity, wait up!"

His siblings and cousin charge up the hill whose terrain is as familiar as the backs of their hands, already marked by the callouses and scars from harvesting corn all day. Vidal's hands are smooth, young and unblemished, but in just two short years, he'll join his brothers in the fields. For now, however, he'll continue to toddle after them.

"Verity!" His sister hesitates, her curls swaying in the wind, but she turns away.

His vision swims for a moment, but he continues to follow after them.

"Caleb! Victor!" The boys laugh up ahead, but the sound pounds against his skull. Vidal staggers, falling to his knees.

"Vidal?" his sister asks, hesitating onto a few feet away. "Vidal, what's wrong?"

"Verity, I--" His throat and head feels stuffy and the world seems to spin on its axis.

"What's wrong with him?" he hears Caleb ask, walking closer.

"I don't know, he just went pale and started acting like this," she explains, but her voice was muffled as his skin burned hot and cold.

"He can't even run," Victor scoffs, a dark shadow looming over him as his vision faded to black. "He's _useless._ "

* * *

For the fourth night in a row, Vidal woke covered in sweat, hands shaking from whatever unseen sickness made him this way. He's learned by now that the best remedy was a handful of nuts stolen from the kitchen cabinet, and so crept across his shared bedroom, careful to avoid the floorboard near Verity's bed that creaked every morning when she stepped on it that was sure to wake her. The hall outside the rooms stacked full with brothers and cousins was easy, because the cacophony of snoring and the older children awake muffled the sound of his footsteps, but it was at the top of the stairs that he hesitated-- not because he needed to watch his step, no…

"What are we going to do about him?" his father asks, the boom of his voice loud enough for Vidal to know that he's had a few drinks earlier in the evening.

"He's doing just fine," his mother contests. "He's picking up the housework well."

There's a deep, bitter laugh, followed by a scoff. " _Housework._ No son of mine should be doing _housework._ "

"He can't go in the fields, Val, he'll faint." Vidal ducks his head, the guilt about his condition rising like bile to his throat.

There's a slam and Vidal flinches, gripping the banister until his knuckles turn white.

"He's _useless_ , Binali."

* * *

The mainland is different from home, louder. There's more people and more kids his age, but that doesn't seem to change the number of friends he has. He's the weirdo, the oldest kid in his class, the dumb farm kid who can't even fight right. He hides behind a thick tree, whose leaves shade him from the beating heat of the sun that drains him faster than the sparring matches he never wins, and he draws.

The leather sketchbook was a gift from Abuelita, for his fourteenth birthday last month. She's gotten him sketchbooks for the past four years now, and this one has been filled with designs for the weapon his teachers promise he'll have one day. It's hard to think about what he wants his signature weapon to be when he can barely hold a sword long enough to swing it and his punches hurt him more than anyone else, but he's a dreamer, always has been, always will, and right now, he dreams of gleaming golden blades.

"What's the freak doing back here?" an older boy asks, and Vidal smothers a flinch at the harsh tone.

"Probably crying for his mommy," another kid laughs, and Vidal's shoulders rise to protect his face on instinct, a habit he learned long before he'd been taught to fight.

"No, look, he's drawing!" A hand grabs his sketchbook from his lap and he leaps into action before he can think, standing and reaching for it.

He's two years younger but just as tall as the boy that's decided he's the best target for his daily punching practice, the only difference is that Vidal doesn't have any friends to defend him.

"Give it back," he says, trying to push against the boys holding him back by his shoulders as his sketchbook is flipped through haplessly.

"Look at this," the boy says, flipping the book around to show his friends. "He thinks he can be a sword-fighter, and he's so useless, he can't even stop _us._ "

It's a drawing of a knight, of _Vidal_ as a knight, sword raised to the sky and shield emblazoned with a star.

"Give it _back_ ." is the only thing he can say, shoving at the boys who are stronger and better and _meaner_.

"What're you gonna do? _Fight me?_ "

"Stop it!" he yells, and the boys holding him step aside, letting him stumble towards the boy holding his sketchbook in the air. His hand flails as he reaches upwards towards it, grabbing against the drawing of the knight, and the next moments are chaos-- glowing light, shouting, a punch landing to his jaw from somewhere he can't see.

He's lying in the dirt with a clenched, bloodied fist, the sky spinning in a blue and white blur as his lungs burn, head pounding.

"Vidal?" his teacher asks. "Lunch is over, class has started."

He can't answer. There's nothing left inside him _to_ answer.

She takes his arms and pulls him to his feet, brushing blood from his mouth. It hurts when she touches it, but he doesn't even have the energy to flinch. All he can do is stare dumbly and ignore the burning pain in his fist.

"Sweetheart, you need to go to the nurse," she insists, lifting his bloodied hand. "I don't know how, but I think you stabbed yourself."

His head lolls and he looks down at his head. Cuts slice across his palm and fingertips as she uncoils his fist gently, and there, in the middle, covered in dirt and blood…

A sword. Beneath the mess, it's the color of ink-smudged parchment, and barely as big as his finger, but he knows it.

He knows it, because he drew it.

"Look at that," his teacher coos, picking up the sketchbook from the dirt and placing the sword over the blank spot in the drawing. "You've found your semblance."

He should be proud, he should be _happy_.

But all he can hear is the words the boys spit in his face.

" _Useless."_

* * *

Suddenly, he decides that coming out was a bad idea.

Of course, it's too late now, but he really should have realized this sooner. After all, it's bad enough he worked with the girls and acts like the girls and fights like a girl, but now he likes boys too? It's like he doesn't even want his father to forgive him.

He's realizing this as he lays in his favorite spot, the small plateau not too far from the house, hidden by shrubbery but overlooking the whole village. He can see the smoke rising from the blacksmith, where not long ago, after months of working tirelessly in the forge to create his swords, he looked up and realized just how beautiful Abraham was and that he in no way meant it as friends were supposed to.

_Bisexual._

It wasn't… quite the right word, though it certainly applied. He was attracted to two or more genders, that much was for certain. But… he had also never even _thought_ about who he was or wasn't attracted to until he’d spent all that time with Abraham, shoulder-to-shoulder as they talked about how to bring his dream to life, and after thinking about it enough to send his mind spinning, he reasoned that it didn't quite matter what gender his future love was, as long as it was _love._

But bisexual was the word his family would understand, it was the one that they'd gossiped about when they heard that one of the local girls had run off to the mainland to be with her supposed girlfriend.

Apparently, the word wasn't the issue.

"Kinda pointless, don't you think?" He hears his oldest cousin Aden say from further down the hill. His entire body tenses in that way that makes him _certain_ that she's talking about him. "I mean, _bisexual?_ What is that supposed to even _mean?_ "

Keyden, only a year younger than Aden and ten years older than Vidal himself, gives a response. "Hell if I know," he says. "Apparently it means he likes girls and guys, but I think he's just gay and doesn't want to break Abuelita's heart."

The mention of Abuelita is like a shot to the heart and his fingernails dig into tender flesh to keep him from crying at the thought of what Abuelita even _thinks_ about all of this, because surely she knows by now, if Aden and Keyden know. After all, he only told his parents, but gossip spreads fast on an island this small.

"I can't believe that after everything he put Uncle Val and Aunt Bin through, he's gonna take away their chance of seeing him get married. I mean, he can't even promise that he'll give them grandkids anymore."

"Maybe that's for the best," Keyden mutters, and Vidal hates himself for straining to hear what comes next. "He's got that freaky blood disease, right? For all we know, his kids would have it too, and then they'd be just as weak as he is. Better off that he goes through this bisexual phase, because once he turns out gay, we don't have to worry about that."

"You got a point there," Aden hums. "Guess that makes this whole nonsense the first good thing he ever did for the family, huh? I mean, he's been pretty damn useless."

* * *

_"Diana!"_

It doesn't matter how many bottles they drink, they can't forget the image of their girlfriend's lifeless eyes as her body tipped back and fell over the side of the docking platform.

Their father's voice resurfaces as they struggle to take the cap off of another bottle.

 _"You have done nothing for this family._ "

His last words to them before they departed to Haven, a reminder that no matter how hard they worked, no matter how hard they _fought_ , it would never make up for the damage they caused just for being born like _this_ , weak and tired just from living.

_"If you go to that school, you're abandoning this family once and for all."_

They'd done it all for their family, to prove that they could _help_ , that they could be more than a burden, more than just dead weight. They'd fought through school just to prove that they were _worth something_ , only to be told that reaching their goal meant leaving the very people they were fighting for behind.

_"You're no longer my son."_

They were never his _son._ It had taken years for them to realize that their discomfort with their father's words had nothing to do with how broken _they_ were, but that they weren't a boy or a girl, they were just… Vidal.

 _"You're_ useless. _"_

"SHUT UP!" they bellowed, throwing the still-unopened bottle across the room. It hit the wall at shattered against a photograph, taken at the Vale Pride Festival that they'd gone to with Diana barely a year before.

The shattering of glass takes them back to that night, to how the Atlesian Knight's metallic body shattered beneath their fists and swords in a fit of blind rage.

To how it's senseless glowing red face just stared blankly ahead, as if it hadn't just robbed them of the future they never thought they'd have.

"Useless," they mutter, reaching for another bottle.

* * *

Vidal staggers into the training room where Jaune, Nora, and Ren gasp for breath.

"Where's Oscar?" they ask, following the sounds of fighting and avoiding the Atlas military on their tail. It certainly wouldn't be the first time they'd run from the police.

"He said he had to go somewhere, do something on his own," Jaune saus. "I don't know--"

"I do." Oscar and his damn honesty. _He was going to talk to Ironwood._ Ironwood, who had dug his heels so deep into the ground that Vidal was surprised he hadn't hit bedrock.

And Ironwood was waiting on the Winter Maiden.

The lift down to the vault is frustratingly slow and Vidal twiddles with the hilts of their swords as it descends, the dim blue glow of the lights slowly coming into view.

Oscar stands at the edge of the platform and Ironwood's hand is uncomfortably close to his pistol. Vidal can't hear what they're saying, not from this distance, but Diana flashes across their vision, the same fear written across Oscar's face as she wore that night, and they know they have to do _something._

Eyes scanning the ceiling, they find what they're looking for.

Ironwood is so preoccupied with whatever lecture he's bestowing upon the boy that he doesn't hear the release of an arrow, nor does he see the string connected to it.

And quietly, oh so quietly, Vidal leaps off of the lift.

Sailing through the air, the wind rushing up their skirt and ruffling their hair, they remember the plummet down to the ground astride a Griffon, the blood pumping through their veins red-hot with anger and grief.

"Then you're just as dangerous as she is, James," Oscar says, a steely gaze holding centuries of certainty within them. Vidal lands on the walkway, and the distance seems so far, but they can't--

Ironwood's hand drifts back, a miniscule movement, but Vidal can see the moment playing out in front of their eyes.

_A blast of light._

_His body tipping back._

_Eyes wide with shock._

"James is what my friends call me," Ironwood says grimly, reaching for his pistol.

Vidal sprints down the narrow path, heels clattering on the metal, but they can't hear it over the pounding in their ears.

_"DIANA!"_

"To you…" Ironwood says, "It's General."

He draws his pistol in a flash, and a burst of adrenaline manages to get Vidal between them as the gun fires.

The impact alone takes their breath away, or at least, what breath they had left. There's a golden flash across their vision as their aura shatters, drained from fending off soldiers.

Their entire chest goes numb as they feel themselves stumble backwards, and they can barely hear Oscar's cry of surprise as they fall into him.

It started to burn at about the same time gravity took over, dragging Vidal and Oscar along with them over the edge of the platform.

They couldn't tell if the spinning was from the plummet to their inevitable doom or the adrenaline of the fact that _they had just been shot_ , but between Oscar's shouts and the chorus of their memories, they manage two words.

"Not useless."

And then it all goes black.

**Author's Note:**

> I HOPE YOU ENJOYED there will undoubtedly be more to come because I have,,, so much content for these dumbasses, especially my dumbass, and I will be writing "they are Involved in volume 8" fic as it airs because I'm trash


End file.
